How did that "exhaustive" investigation of the silver market by the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission miss this? How will the World Gold Council and most monetary metals mining companies continue to miss it? How many more anti-trust lawsuits will this prompt? Anybody seen Blythe Masters lately?

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Former JP Morgan Trader Pleads Guilty to Manipulating U.S. Metals Markets for Years

By Hugh Son and Dan Mangan
CNBC, New York
Tuesday, November 5, 2018

An ex-J.P. Morgan Chase trader has admitted to manipulating the U.S. markets of an array of precious metals for about seven years -- and he has implicated his supervisors at the bank.

John Edmonds, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of commodities fraud and one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, price manipulation, and spoofing, according to a release today from the U.S. Department of Justice:

Edmonds spent 13 years at New York-based J.P. Morgan until leaving last year, according to his LinkedIn account.

...Dispatch continues below ...

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As part of his plea, Edmonds said that from 2009 through 2015 he conspired with other J.P. Morgan traders to manipulate the prices of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures contracts on exchanges run by the CME Group. He and others routinely placed orders that were quickly canceled before the trades were executed, a price-distorting practice known as spoofing.

"For years John Edmonds engaged in a sophisticated scheme to manipulate the market for precious metals futures contracts for his own gain by placing orders that were never intended to be executed," Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said in the release.

Of note for J.P. Morgan, the world's biggest investment bank by revenue: Edmonds, a relatively junior employee with the title of vice president, said that he learned this practice from more senior traders and that his supervisors at the firm knew of his actions.

Edmonds pleaded guilty under a charging document known as an "information." Prosecutors routinely use them to charge defendants who have agreed to cooperate with an ongoing investigation of other people or entities. ...